Boxed editions are restricting but if you take UK published books alone (both hardback and paperback, and include Folio Society editions) in slipcases or boxes, there are about 75 different sets to collect.

Some of the paperback box sets from the 1970's are now difficult to find, mainly because the cardboard boxes were poorly made and have fallen to pieces.

I find the idea of focusing on just collecting boxed/slipcased editions quite a good idea. At a rough count there are about 50 UK different ones (I am including paperback boxed sets) on my shelves and I don't even have all the ones I would want in my collection (I don't have the pauline baynes hardback set for instance).

On garm's point about a single leaf suporting the whole weight: I have a really bad condition 1978 LOTR India-paper (no box, pages missing at the back and cover painted - yes, painted - grey - it cost a pound) so I have just tried holding one page and, lo and behold, it does work. Not even close to tearing. The paper is evidently deceptively strong.

That's a nice book, but I think you may find it a bit restricting to collect only boxed editions of Tolkien's works from now on. But we'll see.

(as a matter of fact, there's nothing stopping you having boxes or slipcases made for your books - apart from the price, of course. I had my Methuen Silm. on the shelf, just as it comes from the printers, for years. Then last year I decided it needed a bit of protection from dust and general shelf-wear, so I had a bookbinder knock up a nice slipcase in paper-covered boards with a ribbon pull, which moves the book out of the case like silk. It cost me £20.00, which I thought reasonable.

As for the Harper Collins logo - forgive my bluntness, but what else can you expect? All the HC books have that logo. My older copies of LotR etc have the Unwin Hyman logo, and the ones before that have the Allen & Unwin logo (which is, simply, their name; but a logo nonetheless.) Branding is exactly what it is; it's been going on forever; and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Now what is odd is that on the limited ed. Folio set, the name of the author is missing from the spines; all you see is the book title (TH, LotR, Silm), and the word 'FOLIO' in large capitals. Mind you, the designer makes up for it on the books' front covers.

India paper is lovely; though I've never been happy about reading my copies. The paper seems too thin, though actually I've read (in Sutcliffe's history of the Oxford University Press) that one ought to be able to support the whole weight of a book by one leaf. Not that I'd try it myself!